Kern County Biographies
W. E. HOUGHTON
Submitted by Sally Kaleta, October, 2006
This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm
W. E. Houghton, an influential citizen of Kern County and a
resident and representative business man of Bakersfield, was born in Lincoln,
Penobscot County, Maine, August 7, 1852. His father, George E. Houghton, a
mechanic by trade, removed with his family from Maine to Lee, Massachusetts,
afterward coming to California and locating at Stockton, where he died in 1878.
Of his eight children, William E. is the youngest. The mother, a native of
Maine, and a most estimable lady, now lives in San Jose. Of the other members of
the family, a brother, R. E. Houghton, is an able attorney of San Francisco, and
another is Master in Chancery in the same city. A third brother is engaged in
the milling business in Seattle, Washington, and a fourth, who was for some
years a prominent tutor in public and private schools of California, lost his
life by accident in Bakersfield, in February 1888.
W. E. Houghton received his early schooling in the town of Lee,
Massachusetts. After coming to California he took a commercial course of study
in San Jose, and in 1873 came to Kern County as bookkeeper for John H.
Reddington & Co. In 1876 he became cashier for the Kern Valley Bank, in which
position he continued about two years and a half. From 1879 to 1888 he was in
the employ of Miller & Lux as an accountant and searcher of records during the
time of their extensive litigation, which involved grave questions of land
titles and water rights in Central California. The firm of Houghton & Lightner
was organized in 1887, and from year to year their business has developed until
it is now recognized as one of the most extensive and systematically conducted
of all on the coast. The firm, comprising the subject of this sketch and Abia T.
Lightner, both men of established business reputation, have personally a wide
experience in land matters in California. They have developed a complete set of
abstracts of titles of all the lands in Kern County, and are doing a large
business in the abstract line.
Mr. Houghton was married, December 25, 1880, to Miss Ella Said of
Bakersfield, and they are the parents of two children. Their residence is a
model of its kind and is located at the corner of G Street and Railroad Avenue
Source: "The Memorial and Biographical History of the Counties of Fresno,
Tulare, and Kern, California," Lewis Publ. Co., p.